Rick Warren, the megachurch pastor who delivered the invocation at President Obama’s First Inauguration, defended his opposition to same-sex marriage in a discussion with CNN’s Piers Morgan Friday evening. Warren argued that gay people shouldn’t be allowed to “redefine” the term “marriage,” and agreeing to be “tolerant” shouldn’t mean that he has to treat marriage equality as “equally valid.”
WARREN: Tolerance used to mean we treat each other with mutual respect even if you have major disagreements. Today tolerance has been changed to mean all ideas are equally valid. Well, that’s nonsense. All ideas are not equally valid. […]
I’m more against the redefinition of the term marriage than anything else. I don’t think other groups get the opportunity to redefine a term. For instance, if a Muslim says this is a term we use and all of the sudden I take that term and mean it for me. Well, that’s not right. […]
Don’t take a term and and make it something different. Orwell talked about doublespeak, where words mean the exact opposite of what they used to mean.
Watch it (via The New Civil Rights Movement):
Rick Warren has long maintained that marriage equality is wrong because God says so. He was a vocal supporter of California’s Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage, though he has since said that speaking out for that measure was a mistake. He has admitted that some churches are responsible for promoting anti-gay hate, and he himself has suggested that having same-sex attractions is no different than wanting to punch someone in the nose — or as “natural” as arsenic.